Graphic Design and Illustration.

My First Inktober

As mentioned in my previous post, I participated this past October with Inktober, a month long challenge to create one traditional (ie: non-digital) ink drawing a day for the entire month of October. I was going to be pretty busy with other personal things and my work likes to keep me pretty busy, so this was going to be quite an interesting challenge.

To speed things up, I decided that I would try and draw people as they walked by the large bay window of my living room. While an interesting idea, it proved somewhat difficult. I would be out of town for one weekend and towards the end of the month, it was getting pretty dark outside pretty early. Tough to draw people you can’t really see. So weekdays I tried my best to draw passers by, and weekends I was left to my own imagination. The same went for days I was either too late in getting home, or too busy with other things before the sun set.

Some drawings were more successful than others. I took this opportunity to experiment with certain styles. Since I only had limited time with each drawing (most were completed within one hour) I didn’t really have the time to anylize my work the way I probably should. When I was being more true to my usual style of drawing, I think I was consistently more successful. When I was trying things out by borrowing things from other artists I admire, I was less so. Which is odd as I consider one of my strengths to be my ability to match styles. This has been handy with me as an illustrator in a small market where I can draw what is needed for the job rather than seeking out jobs that would fit my style.

I’ve compiled all the drawings into one large image. You may click on the image at top to view a much larger image that will have a more detailed view of each picture. I will most likely be cleaning up some of the more successful images and dropping in some colour for future Image of the Month posts in the new year.